In this talk, I will present our study on the development of Chinese children's (from 3 years old to 18 years old) sharing behavior, and a comparison between Chinese and German children, ages from 8- to 18-years-olds. In these studies, we used two classical economic games, the Dictator (DG) and Ultimatum Game (UG). Age effect and cultural effect will be described and discussed.
In addition, the previous one-child policy in China makes it a special context to study the sharing behavior of only children. There is great concern in the society that only children maybe more self-centered because of being spoiled. In a longitudinal study conducted in rural China, we found no striking difference between only and non-only children’s sharing behavior, indicating that a higher need for friendship and social networking may counterbalance the only children’s self-centered tendency.